Private Bankers Turn Detective To Track Down Terrorist Assets

by Carla Johnson, Investors Offshore.com

25 October 2001

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, private bankers around the world have turned detective in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks, and are joining with intelligence agencies and lawmakers to track the assets of Osama bin Laden and other suspected terrorist groups and individuals.

'You don't catch a terrorist by the usual money laundering checks, but by careful intelligence,' John Cusack, international legal and compliance officer for UBS AG explained to the WSJ. And the rules have changed elsewhere, too. 'This is a kind of reverse money laundering,' said Sylvain Matthey, legal counsel for a Swiss private bank. 'So the question is not how the accounts are funded, but what are they being used for?'

UBS has posted its own wanted information in offices throughout its global network, and has been running the 1,000 strong wanted list through its systems at regular intervals. According to Mr Cusack, these searches have turned up information 'relating to four small payment flows, three in the Americas and one in Europe, where the identity of the remitting party could be worthy of investigation.'

However, in a certain sense, this is the easy part. What is not so easy, according to the secretary general of the Swiss Private Bankers Association Michel Derobert, is diplomatically trying to probe prospective clients for clues as to their political ideology, or re-examining the accounts of old and long established customers for possible terrorist connections.

Mr Matthey confirmed that the emphasis was most decidedly different in the wake of the attacks: 'We're trained to ask business questions,' he told the Wall Street Journal, 'but "What's your political point of view? What's your view of America?"...this is touchy.'

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